Retribution
by NecroBarney
Summary: Eli's death is hitting everyone hard, Alyx especially. That, and Barney is missing, Dr. Kleiner and Dr. Magnusson are in charge of the Rebellion, and the Borealis still needs to be destroyed. It's a wonder humanity evened survived a year with out Gordon Freeman, let alone twenty. First Story, No Flaming, Constructive Criticism Welcomed and Encouraged.


**Authors Note: Howdy, my name is NecroBarney (The purple Dinosaur, not the ****sarcastic, badass**** friend of Freeman.) This is my first story. I'm writing it because I recently got hooked on Half-Life, beating all the games in four sittings (I have a problem with waiting to see what happens). I ****then ****wanted to read some Fan-Fics of them. That's when I noticed that there were disappointing few stor****ies****, and the ones that were good, were just novelized versions of the game. So after reading them, I decided to write something to fill the gap in my soul left from Half-Life 2: Episode 2. ****I originally wanted to write a Half-Life MassEffect crossover, but I'm still angry at Bioware for the buzz-kill of an ending, so I decided to just stick with Half-Life. Well here you are, my first attempt at a Fan-Fic. Oh and I will not tolerate Flaming or Spamming, but constructive criticism is welcomed with open arms. And if you see any mistakes just PM me, I'll fix them as soon as I can. Enjoy ****and Review ****(hopefully)**

**Edit: I accidentally published the rough draft instead of the edited version. While this isn't that much better, it's better than the first version. Like I said Enjoy, and please Review!**

Chapter 1

Eli Vance was dead, impaled through the neck by that... thing, and I couldn't do a thing about it. Funny how life works. One moment, the whole world relies on you, the next, you're immobilized by a giant maggot, being forced to watch as Alyx was pulled towards the other Advisor. Forced to listen as she cried for my help, unable to a single thing, not even able to say some words of comfort. The Advisor began to retract it's tentacle, preparing to strike Alyx. I started to panic, trying to come up with some half-ass plan to get us out of this mess. But that's when I saw a blur of movement out of the corner of my eye.

CRASH!

D.O.G burst through the skylight, landing on the Advisor holding Alyx and I. The Advisor screeched when D.O.G hit it, throwing Alyx and I roughly to the side. Being thrown into the side of the wall was not as painful as I thought it would be, but my HEV suit warned me of multiple fractures, moments later pumping me full of morphine. Looking up I saw that the Advisor had managed to throw D.O.G off its back, but not before receiving a massive gash on its side.

The first Advisor fled out through the breach in the side of the hanger, the second one soon following.

I started after them, but then realized that I couldn't follow because the breach was to high up for me to vault or climb. I turned around to see if Alyx was unharmed and saw her kneeling over her father, pleading for him not to leave her. "Dad... please Dad... please don't leave me..."

I put my hand on her should, trying to comfort her. She looked up at me, eyes red and filled with tears. I knelt next to her, trying to find some words to comfort her. That's when I heard someone enter the hanger.

"Gordon! I just came down to- dear God!" I look up and see Dr. Kleiner on the catwalk were the entrance was located. I watched as he vaulted the railing – something you don't see many aged scientist do – and run over to us. He took one look at Eli's body and Alyx "Gordon," said Kleiner, a slight catch just barely visible in his voice "I want you to take Alyx outside." I nodded and grasped both of Alyx's shoulders and began to guide her towards the lift that would take us to the entrance, but she resisted. "No!" she screamed at me "I won't leave him!" How do I deal with this... "Alyx, you have to leave him" I said this as soothingly as I could, but she just ignored me and continued to weep over her father.

I came to a decision. One I hoped I would not regret late. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder. I was met with her screaming and pounding on the back of my HEV suit. I carried her over to the lift and punched the button to activate the lift. "Put me down!" yelled Alyx "I will not leave him, I can't!" But I ignored her and when the lift arrived at the entrance I carried her out.

"Please Gordon! Take me back!" sobbed Alyx "Why are you doing this!?"

That's when I set her down and looked into her eyes.

"Because" I stated in a shaky voice "You need to calm down, you just lost your father. I know this is hard for you but-"

"You have no idea how hard it is!" yelled Alyx "You have absolutely no idea what it's like to lose a father!"

"No, but I know what its like to lose somebody"

She stopped struggling

I was unsure as of how to react to this, but I followed my gut and began to rub her back. We just stood there outside the hanger, her crying and me trying to figure out what to do. After what seemed like a lifetime, Alyx's sobs began to decrease in intensity until all I heard from her was an occasional sniffle.

After another five or so minutes I saw a bunch of rebels come out of the building we had exited earlier, before the Advisor attack. The were heading to the hanger, probably to move Eli's body. That's when I chose to take Alyx inside. Not wishing her to see her father's body, fearing it would send her into another fit of crying.

I guided her to the launch room and sat her down in one of the many chairs that were strewn across the room. After a couple of minutes of quiet sobbing, Alyx managed to speak. "Thank you Gordon, I'm sorry for yelling at you, I realize that you were just trying to help"

"It's fine, I probably shouldn't have picked you up like that anyways. In fact, it should be me saying sorry for how roughly I took you out of there."

"No, you did what you had to do, I was not thinking straight"

"What the hell is going on?" It was Dr. Magnusson in all his egotistical glory "Where is everyone? We still have a lot of work to do. And where is Eli, he was supposed to come back after seeing you two off!"

Damn, Alyx did not need his superiority crap right now. So I got up and did something I had wanted to do since first meeting Magnusson. I walked up to him and leveled punch straight into his jaw. He fell gasping and spluttering onto the ground, his lip bleeding and his jaw most probably broken.

"Why did you do that!?" Screeched Dr. Magnusson, looking like he was near tears.

"Because, you barged in here, yelling at Alyx and I before we could explain anything, and for you information Eli just DIED. So before you go around flinging your giant ego around, maybe you should ask someone KINDLY what's going on."

Magnusson had a horrified look slowly coming across his face as I vented on him.

"I-I-I didn't reali-"

"NO! You didn't realize, but that doesn't give you one damn good reason to come in here screaming about shit only you care about!" At this point I began to calm down enough to think clearly about what I was saying. But that didn't stop me from advancing on him again. I grabbed him by his collar, forcefully pulling him to his feet, about to explain in greater detail why it was his place to think before acting.

"Gordon!"

I looked over to see Alyx had stood up and was walking over. Crap, I must have looked like a complete jerk venting on him like that. I feel horrible, and slightly scared over what she's going to say.

But what I didn't expect was for her to walk right past me and go up to Magnusson, look at him for a moment, then punch him in the jaw much harder then I had. Her fist was met with a loud snap, his head snapping back. Damn she could punch, if his jaw wasn't broken before, it was now.

Magnusson fell right on his ass, completely out of it. I began to wonder whether or not I should have intervened. No, I probably would've done the same in her place.

"That felt good." Alyx stated plainly before walking out of the room.

After watching her leave, I looked down at unconscious Dr. Magnusson. Well, this will be an interesting story to tell Barney.

**Author's Note: Special thanks to my friend Hyperzpherian for Beta reading and assisting with editing.**


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